Savages

193

“We did this,” Ben says, looking at the images.

“Lado did it,” Chon answers.

“We caused it,” Ben says.

Chon goes off. Rare rush of valuable words. “If you’re going to wallow in this self-indulgent guilt trip you should never have started this in the first place. What do you think happens in a war? You think only soldiers get killed?

“You knew what you were doing when you left that van in the hood. You knew you were setting a trap. Don’t be so hypocritical as to now feel sorry for the bait.

“And you know it’s not going to stop here. Azul’s people will have to respond. There’ll be more dead kids within days. Then a counterresponse, then a counter-counter until it’s Gandhi’s world of the blind. But isn’t that what we started out to do?”

Chon knows what war is.

What it turns us into.

They know that Lado will keep going.

He believes there is a leak in his organization, a turncoat working for Azul, and he won’t stop until he finds him.

“Or we feed him one,” Ben says.